


where you lead

by toxica939



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 10:56:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17786078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toxica939/pseuds/toxica939
Summary: If your teenage son has to explain to you that the fit, grumpy bloke who keeps you in good coffee and thick-cut bacon just asked you out, you probably need to take a good, hard look at yourselfORthe Gilmore Girls AU you didn’t know you wanted





	where you lead

Robert’s dying. There’s no other explanation. Head pounding, vision blurred, limbs heavy; he can feel himself weakening with every step.

This is so unfair. There were so many things he wanted to do, so many things he never got chance to say. He was fine when he left the house, he can’t believe this is how it’s going to end for him. The only silver lining is that at least he’ll get to see Aaron one last time.

Somehow, and he really has no idea how, he makes it through the door. Manages to collapse into a stool, drapes himself dramatically across the counter, and closes his eyes to wait for death.

There’s a cough.

Robert prises open an eye. There’s an arm, soft orange plaid rolled at the elbow, forearm corded with muscle, a dusting of dark hair. It’s a perfect arm, Robert likes it very much. Especially when it plonks a cup of steaming coffee right under his nose.

“Drink that and stop whimpering,” the arm says. “You’re scaring all my customers.”

The arm is rude, so Robert ignores it in favour of burying his face in his cup until he comes back from the brink.

When he’s finished he holds it out for more, musters up a sunny smile.

Aaron eyes him with disdain. “You’re an idiot,” he says, like he does every day.

Robert flashes his teeth. “But I’m your idiot,” he says, like he does every day.

He’s not, obviously, but he likes the way it makes Aaron go pink.

Aaron puts his cup back down in front of him, full again, and hurries off to take someone their breakfast. Robert puts his elbows on the counter, cradles his cup under his nose and  _breathes_. That’s better.

“No Seb today?” Aaron asks, coming back just in time to slap Robert away from the dome of muffins on the counter.

Robert rubs his smarting knuckles. “Revising, not long til exams, is it?”

Aaron leans to fold his arms on his side of the counter, it puts his face close enough to Robert’s that he can smell him; rich coffee and bacon fat. Robert lets his mouth water.

“Yeah he was in here last night, books all over the place, taking up my best table.”

Robert glances over his shoulder to the table in the window, with its bench seat and plump cushions, sunlight falling across it in disjointed rectangles. “You should have told him to bugger off,” he says. “Did he even buy anything?”

Aaron shrugs. “He looked busy, it was fine.”

Aaron always gets sort of misty-eyed whenever they talk about Seb. Ever since Robert fled to the village when Seb was barely walking and Aaron was just a kid. Back when he thought Robert, seventeen and carting a baby round on his hip, was worthy of hero worship. Aaron, gruff and grumbling at the best of times, has doted on Seb, like the rest of village, for as long as Robert can remember, and Robert’s always poked fun at him for it.

“You’ve gone soft,” Robert tells him, sipping at his coffee.

That gets him a glare. “Do you want the bacon sarnie I’m about to put on for you or not?”

“Yes please.”

“Then shut your mouth, you talk too much.”

Robert mimes zipping his lips closed, goes back to his coffee while Aaron does his actual job.

The butty Aaron brings him is dripping with butter and brown sauce, bacon still bubbling. It’s a work of art.

“God,” Robert says vaguely, gazing at his sandwich, “Sometimes, I could actually kiss you.”

Aaron pauses where he’s making someone a drink, sugar skittering across the counter top. He coughs, sweeping it off the edge into his cupped hand and his voice, when he speaks, is frayed around the edges. “It’s just a butty.”

Robert eyes him while he takes a bite. There’s always been something addictive about flirting with Aaron, maybe because Aaron never seems to know what to do with him. Lately, Robert’s been wondering if there might be more to it, but he’d be risking a lot to ask, maybe too much. And the likes the gentle hum in the air between them as it is. Seeing Aaron in the mornings is a treat, something to file away to keep himself going.

Maybe that’s enough.

:::

“I wonder what this is about,” Seb says, jogging a little to catch Robert up.

They crunch up the drive together. Robert still isn’t used to it being light out at this time of night, barely any chill in the air. Summer seems to come earlier every year.

Jesus, he’s starting to sound like his dad.

Robert shudders, passes it off as a shrug. “No idea. When did we last even have a village meeting?”

“After the daffodil incident,” Seb reminds him, and they both a take a second to appreciate the fact that Robert never got caught for that.

“Maybe it’s an Easter thing then?” Robert suggests. “Hey, maybe Pollard wants you to wear the bonnet again.”

Seb bristles. “He can do one. Anyway, I’ve already told him how upset Isaac was to be left out last year, so I think I’m in the clear.”

Robert has to laugh. “You realise Isaac’s going to murder you?”

Seb shrugs, elbows waggling outwards. “Worth it.”

Isaac’s twice Seb’s size, all shoulders and hair to Seb’s coltish limbs and freckles. If Isaac didn’t swallow his tongue every time Seb so much as glanced his way, Robert would worry. As it is, he’s pretty sure Isaac would wear the bonnet without fuss, if Seb asked him nicely enough.

Not that there’s any need to tell Seb that.

The village hall is bustling with people but they manage to snag a pair of seats near the back. Robert catches a glimpse of Aaron on the other side of the room, mussed up hair and the dark of his beard. He’s got his arms folded and a tea towel over his shoulder, obviously wanting to get back to work. Robert stares at the back of his neck, pale and vulnerable above his collar, until he starts to feel weird about it.

Pollard waits until everyone’s seated, before he hops up on the stage. “Good evening, everyone,” he says. “I know it’s unusual to call a village meeting at such short notice but-”

“Mate,” Aaron calls out. “Can you just get on with it? Some of us’ve got businesses to run.”

A murmur of agreement ripples through the room and Pollard puffs up like a blowfish, mouth opening again.

Robert slumps down in his seat and tips his head on to Seb’s bony shoulder to close his eyes. He’s been awake too long for this.

“Wake me up if anything exciting happens,” he says, already tuning out Pollard’s droning voice.

:::

He comes to, when Seb shrugs him awake, to an empty room, only a few last stragglers shuffling out.

“Is it over?” he asks, wiping at his mouth. There’s a patch of dribble on Seb’s shoulder that Robert hopes he wont notice.

Seb stands up, stretching his arms out. “It’s been over for a while. Aaron brought us food.”

There’s a bulging paper bag, rolled at top, and a takeaway cup on the seat beside Robert. Of course Aaron brought them food, Aaron’s perfect.

Oh god, what if Aaron saw all the dribble?

Robert grabs them both, sipping at the coffee as they start the short walk home. “Did I miss much?”

Seb shakes his head. “Plans for a new gazebo by the church, something about the playground, Rodney calling Eric a tiny dictator, the usual. Aaron said you’ve been looking tired and not to tell you that that’s decaf.”

Robert drops the cup he’s holding straight into the bin they’re passing. “He’s really got to stop doing that.”

Seb shrugs. “He worries about you.”

“He doesn’t need to,” Robert says, even though it makes him feel soft inside, like a bruised peach, every time Aaron tries to take care of him. Robert’s been taking care of himself and Seb for so long, he’s always an arse about letting someone else take a turn.

“So you didn’t pull an all nighter at the B&B on Saturday?” Seb asks, eyebrow quirked.

Robert sighs. “You don’t need to worry about me either. There was a leak, someone had to sort it.”

“I know, you said.”

Robert slings an arm around his shoulders, feeling guilty, in spite of himself. Seb’s a good kid, the best. Maybe Robert has been leaving him to his own devices a little too much recently. It’s hard, sometimes, to balance his new manager’s position against the fact that Seb does still need him, even if it isn’t like it was when he was little. “What do you say to movie night tomorrow night then? Just you and me.”

Robert doesn’t think anything will ever compare to the feeling he gets when Seb looks up at him with those big blue eyes, all lit up like that. He wishes he could bottle it, he’d make a fortune.

“Back to the Future marathon?”

Robert nods. “Obviously.”

:::

Robert’s cup is already waiting for him on the counter the next morning, steaming away. There’s a chocolate muffin sat on a little square napkin next to it.

Aaron’s in the corner, taking an order, and Robert ignores him when he looks up, just to be an arse.

“You can’t eat my apology muffin, if you’re not going to forgive me,” Aaron says, going behind the counter to tap away at the till.

Robert shrugs, stuffing some more muffin into his face. “I think it’s the lack of trust between us now, that hurts the most-”

Aaron cuts him off. “Oh fuck off. Tell me you didn’t sleep better last night, tell me.”

“Like a baby,” Robert says, giving up the act. He can’t even pretend to be mad at Aaron these days. “And thanks for the burger.”

There is it, that little flush in Aaron’s cheeks that makes Robert’s heart thump illicitly.

Aaron fidgets adorably for a minute. “You didn’t exactly look up to cooking. What with the pool of dribble and all.”

Robert absolutely does  _not_  go red himself, that would be pathetic. “You know how restful I find village meetings.”

“Don’t even get me started on that.”

“As if I would.” Aaron’s disdain for village meetings is well known. Robert’s pretty sure it’s been a literal agenda item on at least two occasions.

Aaron starts wiping the counter down, even though it’s already sparkling. “So, what are you up to this weekend?”

It’s a weird question. Not the sort of polite small talk Aaron usually makes with him. Robert’s spidey sense tingles.

“Friday night tea up at the farm, you know the drill. Then nothing, actually. Nicola and Jimmy are on holiday.”

Aaron nods rapidly, like this is riveting stuff, and Robert turns his  _weird_  up to  _fucking bizarre_.

“Are you alright?” Robert asks, because Aaron’s still nodding.

“Fine, yeah,” there’s a pause. “I’m going to a wedding on Friday,” Aaron says brightly, apropos of nothing.

“Are you? Whose?” The B&B is booked out all weekend but he hasn’t heard anything about a local wedding.

“Old school mate,” Aaron says. “They’re having some big marquee do up at Home Farm, hell on earth probably. But I quite liked her at school and we sort of bumped into each other on a night out a few months ago, got to catching up. I got the impression someone had left them a couple of empty seats or something and I couldn’t think of a way to get out of it.”

“Right,” Robert says warily. That might be the most words he’s ever heard Aaron use at once. He hopes he’s not winded.

Aaron looks vaguely embarrassed, like he knows exactly what Robert’s thinking. He’s gone really red as well, hands tapping at the counter. “Don’t suppose you fancy keeping me company? So I don’t have to sit next to an empty chair all night?”

“Or take your mum,” Robert points out.

Aaron laughs loudly enough that an old woman at the end of the counter drops her fork. “Yeah, exactly.”

Robert shrugs. He can think of worse ways to spend an evening than with Aaron. It getting him out of Friday night tea is the cherry on top really. “Why not? Everyone keeps telling me I’m due a day off work so, yeah, sounds like fun.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, course. I’ll come with you.”

Aaron looks baffled, as though this wasn’t his idea in the first place. “Okay,” he says. “Great, thank you. That’s great.”

“It’ll be fun,” Robert tells him, going back to his muffin, mentally sifting through his suits to find something that wont clash with whatever Aaron might wear.

Aaron hovers for a second, mouth open, but the bell dings in the kitchen hatch before he can say anything else.

:::

Seb’s on the settee when Robert gets home, feet up on the coffee table. He’s barely more than a tuft of ginger hair and green socks, hidden behind the giant book he’s got his face buried in.

“Grandad rang,” he tells Robert, voice muffled.

Robert makes a face. Great. “You’re going to have to go for tea by yourself on Friday,” he says breezily.

Seb appears from behind his book, visibly suspicious. “Why?”

Robert busies himself putting the kettle on. “I’ve got a thing.”

“What sort of thing?”

“Just a thing,” he doesn’t actually know why he’s being so cagey until Seb speaks again.

“A date thing then. You can’t swerve Grandad’s for a some woman. Or bloke. He’ll go mad.”

“It’s not a date.”

Seb’s eyes roll. God, sometimes he looks so much like his mother. “What then?”

“Aaron’s friend’s getting married, I said I’d go with him, that’s all.”

Seb’s face splits open, grin rising like the sun. “Finally.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re going to a wedding with Aaron,” Seb says, speaking very slowly, like Robert is very elderly and perhaps hard of hearing. “As his  _date_.”

Robert shakes his head. “It’s not a date.”

It definitely hadn’t sounded like a date when Aaron had asked. If Aaron was going to ask him out, if they were actually going to go there, Robert would have noticed.

“Dad,” Seb says, climbing over the back of the settee because he’s an animal. “Of course it’s a date. You’re going to wear a suit and eat food. That’s a date.”

“What would you know about it?”

Oh god. Aaron’s going to be wearing a  _suit_.

Seb folds his arms. “You let me watch too much TV.”

“That’s definitely true,” Robert scrubs a hand through his hair, stomach knotting up when he thinks about Aaron, pink-cheeked and stuttering, asking him to fill a chair. “Oh god. It’s a date, isn’t it?”

Seb’s face is sympathetic, which is nice, but his nod is still smugger than Robert appreciates.

“Does he know it’s a date?” If Robert didn’t notice, maybe Aaron didn’t either.

“Make me one,” Seb says, nodding at the coffee cups sitting forgotten by Robert’s elbow. “And don’t be ridiculous. Aaron’s been in love with you ever since he worked out how his personal parts worked.”

Robert goes hot all over, can’t do a thing to stop it, he has to turn away to hide whatever his face is doing. “No he hasn’t. And please never say  _personal parts_  again.”

“Dad,” Seb says, stepping up behind him to squeeze his shoulders. “Everyone knows you like each other. You don’t have to stay single forever just for me, you know? I like Aaron, and I want you to be happy. Plus, you’re not exactly getting any younger here, are you?”

Robert resists the urge to check his reflection in side of the toaster. “Thanks for that.”

“And Aaron’s pretty okay looking, right? And he owns his own business. You could do a lot worse.”

“Please stop talking.”

Seb wanders back over to his books when Robert hands over his coffee, and Robert’s left at the kitchen table with nothing more than a churning belly and too many wrinkles.

Fuck. It’s a date.

A  _date_.

He’s got a date with the only person who’s ever made his breath catch and he hadn’t even realised it was happening. He’s a fucking idiot.

He’s fucking  _fucked_.

:::

Aaron looks good enough to sink ships. Of course he does. It’s actually unfair how well he’s filling out that suit jacket, Robert’s fingers are already itching to touch and they haven’t even made it out of the car yet.

To make matters worse, all Aaron had done is give Robert a once over when he’d opened the door, nodded, said, “You’ll do,” and turned to go before Robert could even pocket his wallet. He’s barely said three words since.

When they pull up outside Home Farm, Robert stops him before Aaron can get out of the car. “Are you alright?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

Robert gives him a look, watches a woman totter past the window in uncomfortable looking heels when Aaron wont look at back him. “You just seem a bit on edge?”

Either that or he’s regretting the whole thing.

Aaron scrubs both hands over his face, grinds the heels into his eye sockets. “Sorry,” he says, sounding pained. “I’m no good at all this.”

“All what?”

“This,” he waves a hand between them, and at the marquee set up on the grass, brightly coloured bunting fluttering in the breeze. “Weddings and that. I don’t know half these people, it’s just-”

For someone who works in customers service, Aaron is terrible with people, that’s always been true. It’s sort of one of Robert’s favourite things about him, that he gets to be on the inside of all that, see the marshmallowy centre.

Robert nudges him with an elbow. “Well that’s what you’ve got me for isn’t it, like, a buffer or whatever,” Aaron frowns at him, like Robert’s missing the point completely, and Robert hurries to continue. “You don’t have to talk to anyone except me, if you don’t want to. Pretend it’s just the two of us.”

He watches, fascinated, as Aaron’s ears turn red. “Just us,” Aaron says, nodding slowly.

Robert feels the air turn syrupy between them when Aaron doesn’t look away, and he’s half a breath from doing something ridiculous, like trying to hold Aaron’s hand, when a car pulls into the space beside them, blocking out the light, and the moment drops away.

:::

The wedding is beautiful; Aaron’s friend Bella looks amazing, her fella looks at least half as good, and the ceremony is as moving as it can be, given that Robert hasn’t got a clue who these people are or how they met or if they’re even a good match. But the bloke gets properly choked up during his vows, enough that one of the bridesmaids leans over to offer a tissue, which even Robert can’t pretend wasn’t pretty cute.

The marquee is decked out with wild flowers and fairy lights, pops of colour everywhere. Robert and Aaron share an impressed look as they’re herded in to find their table.

Aaron doesn’t seem to know anyone at the table any more than Robert does, so they mostly keep to themselves. The soup is a bit shit and the chicken is dry but they get sticky toffee pudding for dessert and Robert doesn’t drip anything down his front so he can’t really complain. Plus it was free.

He watches Aaron scrape his final plate clean with his spoon, watches his lips go sticky sweet, and has to fight down that urge again, the one that’s been popping up all day, wanting him to put his arm across the back of Aaron’s chair, lean in to drag his nose up that soft looking patch of skin behind Aaron’s ear. The one that wants to overstep the mark, just to see if Aaron will let him.

He pinches the tip of his tongue between his teeth instead and keeps his hands to himself.

They toast the bride and groom about forty times with bitter, wedding package cava, and when Robert excuses himself to head for the makeshift bar, to get them both a proper drink, he’s not exactly surprised to find Aaron at his heels.

“Let me get them,” Aaron’s saying. “You’re only putting up with this for me.”

“Oh yeah. Spending an evening with you looking like that,” Robert says, eyeing Aaron up and down. “What a hardship.”

Aaron rolls his eyes. “Shut up.”

“I mean it,” Robert leans up beside him while Aaron orders them both a beer. “You should wear a suit more often.”

Aaron’s tongue appears, wetting at his lips. “Shut up.”

“You know, you really need to learn how to take a compliment.”

Aaron’s eyes cut to him, and Robert keeps his gaze perfectly steady even though the intensity there is something he wants to shy away from. This is him and Aaron, there’s no reason for his heart to be racing. “You look good too,” Aaron says.

Robert strokes a hand down his tie, says, “Of course I do,” like he isn’t preening under the attention, like he hasn’t spent the last couple of years looking at Aaron just to see if Aaron will look back.

They find a corner to drink their pints, and then another, and another. By the time they’re both loose enough in the shoulders to be laughing together, pointing out who’s probably having an affair with who and speculating about how long the tissue bridesmaid has been round the back of the tent with the best man, Bella and whateverhisnameis are twirling around the makeshift dance floor to Toploader. Which Robert privately thinks is a bit naff, given that it’s not actually all the way dark out yet. Also it’s overcast.

“Maybe it means something to them,” Aaron says, because Aaron’s a sap at weddings, apparently.

Half the place rushes the dance floor for the second half and even Robert’s foot is tapping by the time the song ends, eases into something softer that he remembers from when he was a kid.

“Come on,” Robert says, making the decision for them. He pulls at Aaron’s arm until he’s got no choice but to join the throng of people swaying away.

Aaron’s got his hands up, protesting. “What are you doing? I’m not dancing.”

And he isn’t really, it’s embarrassing, so Robert takes him by the waist, dragging him in until their bellies bump and Aaron has no choice but to hang on to Robert’s arms for balance. “There you go, that’s better.”

Aaron’s scarlet, shaking his head. “You’re mad, you.”

“When in Rome,” Robert says, has to speak right into his ear to be heard. And he’s immediately aware of how close they are. He can see the jackrabbit of Aaron’s pulse in his throat, can smell the woodsy heat of him, the inescapable musk of coffee underneath it all.

It catches Robert’s breath in his chest, both of them stilling when their eyes meet. Aaron’s gaze dips down to Robert’s mouth and then skitters away again, enough to make Robert’s lips buzz with awareness.

It’s overwhelming, suddenly, how much he wants to press kisses to Aaron’s beer damp mouth, take his time with it, see how far down his chest that blush goes. He wants Aaron as breathless as he feels right now. Robert has never want to kiss someone more, and Aaron isn’t even doing anything, he’s just frozen, staring back at Robert like he wants him to  _take_.

Robert’s not like Aaron though, he’s not a particularly good person at all, and he’s self aware enough to know that the only thing holding him back is that he’s afraid of what might come next. Even if Aaron doesn’t push him away, Robert hasn’t been with someone for more than a handful of nights since he knocked Rebecca up in the toilets of her sister’s engagement party when they were 15. He’s never taken any one home to Seb before.

And he knows Seb approves, but that just makes it even more messy. Seb  _loves_  Aaron, just as much as Robert does. Seb’s the one who talked Aaron into buying the cafe five years ago, making a real go of it, eleven years old and mouthing off at Aaron about taking risks – God, it was hilarious.

But there are risks and then there are risks, aren’t there?

Seb has been the axis around which everything has turned for half of Robert’s life. Seb is everything. If Robert messes this up it’s not just his own heart he risks breaking.

So he ducks his head, breaks eye contact to tuck his chin down into the juncture of Aaron’s neck, breathe in what could have been. He holds Aaron as close as he dares, feels the hot press of Aaron’s hands across his back, thinks _I’m sorry, I wish_  as hard as he can, and prays that Aaron can hear him.

:::

Robert has his coffee at home the next morning, nursing his hangover on the comfort of his own settee.

“It went that badly then?” Seb asks, hovering.

“It was fine,” Robert tells him.

Seb pulls a face. “Just fine? It was your first date.”

Robert feels prickly and tender about it all, still smarting from the look Aaron gave him when they went back to their drinks. There’s a good chance that Robert will never get to be that close to him again and he isn’t sure the sense memory will be good enough to keep him going.

“It wasn’t a date,” is what he says to Seb, because he might be pretty switched on for sixteen but he doesn’t need to hear all that.

Seb huffs, face screwing up again. “I don’t get you. You have the chance at something really good here, with like, the perfect guy, and you can’t be bothered? What happens when I go to uni? Are you just going to rattle around here all on your own until you die?”

Robert’s mouth drops open and it takes every ounce of  _not his dad_ he’s got in him not to bite back. “Go to your room.”

“What? You can’t-”

“Go to your room,” Robert repeats, voice low and deadly. “And don’t you ever talk to me like that again.”

Seb’s eyes go watery, like they always do when he gets told off, and he slinks upstairs with his tail between his legs.

His door slamming makes Robert flinch, even though he was bracing for it.

:::

It’s mid afternoon before Seb shows his face again.

Robert takes one look at him and drags him in for a hug. He’s been feeling like an arsehole for about twelve hours total now, he deserves a hug, and Seb owes him.

Seb puts up with it for a couple of minutes, and then fights his way free. “Are you ready to talk about it yet?”

Robert shrugs, goes back to his pile of blankets, still feeling sulky. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

“You’ve been crying.”

“I have not,” so he watched this week’s DIY SOS, sue him.

Seb sighs deeply, put upon. “Dad, you know that I love you, even though you’re an actual idiot, right?”

Robert gives him a look. “Yes.”

“So I mean this in the nicest possible way, alright? Please get your head out your arse.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re in love with Aaron.”

“I think that might be an exaggeration,” Robert says. It’s not, it’s totally not. He keeps thinking about Aaron’s face, so close to his, sparkling in disco colours and watching him like Robert was the only person in the room. It’s making him feel like someone’s scooped his heart out with a melon baller.

“And Aaron’s in love with you.”

“We don’t know that.”

Seb throws his hands up. “Oh for God’s sake. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Robert’s too stunned to tell him off for swearing. “I don’t want to mess everything up,” he says, sort of meekly, he has to admit.

“Who cares if you do?” Seb asks, face crumpled up and baffled, with all the bravery of someone who has never had their heart broken.

Robert braces his arms across his knees. “Aaron’s very important to you,” he says. “And to me. He’s one of our best friends, and he’s a really big part of this village. If I do something to ruin that, it just…it wouldn’t be good.”

“So that means you don’t get to be happy? Either of you? Just in case? That’s stupid.”

Robert huffs a laugh, can’t not. “Being a grown up’s a bit like that.”

Seb comes to sit beside him, elbow digging in to Robert’s arm like always. “Well it shouldn’t be.”

“When your mum gave you to me-”

“She made you promise to take care of me, I know,” Seb looks up at him. “But you have, you do. I’m not a little kid any more, dad, look at me. This isn’t about protecting me, this is about you being too scared to go after what you want. So what if it goes wrong? Aaron’s not an arsehole, he wouldn’t stop being friends with us over something like that. Isn’t he worth the risk?”

Robert would never tell Seb this, but he fucking hates it when the kid’s right.

:::

He manages to avoid Aaron for a couple more days, before his need for decent coffee gets the better of him and he has no choice but to stop stewing on it.

Aaron’s closing up, because Robert’s a wuss and has dragged this out for as long as he possibly can.

“We’re closed,” Aaron says, he doesn’t look up from where he’s upending chairs on to tables.

“I’ll have whatever’s left in the pot,” Robert says. “I’m not fussy.”

He watches Aaron’s shoulders still. “I think we both know that’s a lie,”  he says, but he goes and makes Robert a proper drink anyway, because he’s Aaron.

Robert sits in his usual seat and drinks it. “So how have you been?” he asks. “I haven’t seen you for a couple of days.”

God, he sounds like a total wanker, no wonder Aaron’s looking at him like that.

“Are we really doing this?” Aaron asks.

“Doing what?”

Aaron gapes at him for a minute, then shakes his head and turns around to start wiping down the coffee machine. He doesn’t say anything else but Robert can feel the frustration vibrating off him, thick enough to shake the air between them.

He watches the shift in Aaron’s shoulders, thinks about the strength of them under Robert’s hands in the middle of a crowd. Thinks about everything else, about how it was Aaron who drove Seb to the hospital when he broke his wrist last year and Robert was stuck in traffic an hour away, thinks about the way he scowls at every tourist who comes in this place, and how they all leave loving him anyway. He thinks about all the stupid, pointless flings he’s had, men and women that have never stuck and never meant a thing, thinks about the couple of boyfriends Aaron has hung on to for a while, and how it had seemed like a weight had lifted every time he was single again. He thinks about how much worse his life would be, without Aaron in it. About how he’s been falling for him for years, and how he didn’t even notice it creeping up on him until it closed over his head.

He thinks about Seb, and the nice little life Robert has managed to build for them, from ashes of everything else. The life that wouldn’t exist if Robert hadn’t been brave enough to take it.

He did not work this hard, for all these years, to live half a life.

He follows Aaron behind the counter, gets a hand on his shoulder to turn him around.

“What are you doing? You can’t be back-”

Robert takes Aaron’s face between his hands, drags him in until their foreheads touch. Aaron stills in his hold, eyes fluttering shut when his brain catches up to what’s going on.

Robert gives himself a minute, to take it in, making a memory because he has a feeling he’s going to want to remember this. “You talk too much,” he murmurs, nonsensically, before he tips their mouths together.

There’s an almost overwhelming feeling of  _finally_ , and then Aaron’s coming back to life in his arms, fingers creepy crawling up over Robert’s shoulders and into his hair. Robert gathers him close, makes fists in the butter soft flannel of his shirt to keep him where Robert wants him.

He tries to keep the kiss soft, as romantic as it had seemed in his head, but then Aaron’s mouth is opening under his and his tongue is in Robert’s mouth, and suddenly he’s half hard in his jeans, trying not to ride Aaron’s thigh. He gives up trying to control it and just kisses back, keeps kissing for as long as Aaron will let him, until his mouth feels sloppy with it and his chin is burning from the rough of Aaron’s beard.

They’re both breathless when they finally part, and Aaron looks about as shell shocked as Robert feels; like the ground has shifted under him, like he can’t believe they haven’t been doing that the whole time.

Aaron’s hands slide down Robert’s chest. “What are you doing?” he asks, and he sounds suspicious enough that Robert laughs.

He gathers his courage into a ball. He’s a grown man, if Aaron worked up the nerve to ask him out, Robert can do this.

He keeps hold of Aaron though, so he doesn’t get any ideas about moving away. “So, I had a word with Seb, and it turns out I’ve been a bit of an idiot.”

Aaron gives him a look like, _you don’t say_ , but he doesn’t say anything so Robert keeps going. “It also turns out that I’m sort of massively in love with you, so.”

It’s quite cute, the way Aaron’s mouth drops open and just sort of… stays that way. “You what?”

Robert looks him right in the eye. “I love you. And I have it on pretty good authority that you feel the same way?”

He doesn’t mean to make it a question but it happens anyway. Aaron’s frowning, sort of kneading at Robert’s chest with his fingertips like a kitten, but he’s nodding.

“Yeah?” Robert prods.

Aaron rolls his eyes. “Obviously, yeah. I though you weren’t interested. After wedding, when you – I thought you weren’t-”

Robert cuts him off. “I’m interested. I’m…more than interested.”

“So why did you…”

“I was scared,” Robert admits, grudgingly. “I think I’ve been trying to tell myself I was looking out for Seb, but that’s not it. I’ve never felt like this before, I’m bloody terrified.”

Aaron’s nodding. “Same here.”

“Seb reckons you’re worth the risk.”

“That does sound like him,” Aaron says. “Also he’s right.”

Robert strokes his hands up Aaron’s back, feels the push and pull of them breathing together. “So, I’m in. If you’ll have me.”

Aaron’s eyes are the bluest thing Robert has ever seen. “I’ll have you,” Aaron says, voice a murmur, and it’s him who leans up this time, kisses Robert until his head’s spinning. Until it feels like this could actually be his life.

Aaron fits against him like he was made to be there, and Robert lets himself imagine, for the first time, a world in which he doesn’t fuck this up.

 

**Author's Note:**

> join me on tumblr, i'm vckaarrob


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